Falling victims to online disinformation among young Filipino people: Is human mind to blame?

Abstract

Proceeding from the insights of truth-default theory, the article examines the extent by which the human psyche’s default assumption of truth contributes to our susceptibility to believe in false online content. This study attempts to trace the cognitive roots of people’s online susceptibility to disinformation. The article also investigates the role of fact-checking behavior and belief perseverance to being vulnerable to online disinformation. Data gathered were from 234 survey respondents and 16 participants from two sets of focus group discussion (FGD). All subjects were college students from Manila, Philippines. Regression analysis shows that our assumption of truthfulness and fact-checking behavior are statistically significant predictors of (susceptibility) Facebook disinformation experiences. Among others, the study interestingly found out too that susceptibility to online disinformation is strong among Facebook users when these false online contents are favorable to them. The article wishes to contribute to the understanding of the susceptibility of the human mind to different forms of falsehood proliferating online.